Short plays are flocking to mini programs

I believe everyone has seen short plays to some extent. They are both earthy and addictive, and are very suitable for killing time. Nowadays, short plays have gradually been "embraced" by professional short play mini programs. How will the content ecology change? In this article, the author analyzes and looks forward to the future ecology of short plays from three aspects. Let's take a look.

After experiencing the industry transformation from wild growth to standardized production, the short drama content born on the short video platform has shown an increasingly sophisticated level. However, today's short dramas are gradually drifting away from the short video platforms where they were originally born, and have flocked to the "arms" of professional short drama mini-programs, just to gain more traffic and commercial returns on the mini-programs.

1. Investors continue to pour into the short drama track

"As the short drama track becomes more mature and hits continue to emerge, the two most important issues of users and monetization models have been solved." Li Fangfang, the founder of Sheshi Culture, told the entertainment value officer about the development and changes of the short drama industry in 2023 in a more relaxed manner than before. Short dramas are an important part of Fangfang's company's main business.

Before founding Her Vision Culture, Fangfang was in charge of all short content at Sunac Culture Group. At that time, her boss hoped that she could find the most commercially promising breakthrough. At that time, Fangfang was already optimistic about the short drama business, which was still a blue ocean market. It was during her time at Sunac Culture Group that Fangfang accumulated resources and experience in producing short dramas. After starting her own business, Fangfang's team mainly produced short dramas on mini programs, such as "My Destined Wife" and "Don't Abuse Me, My Lady Is Remarrying with the Baby".

The team is currently preparing short dramas about family fights in the Republic of China and modern and cute babies. She admitted that 2023 will be a 1+N model, and the company will produce 10 small-scale micro-short dramas every year, and at the same time produce a large-scale horizontal screen boutique short drama.

While deeply cultivating the short drama track, Fangfang found that there are basically three types of short drama production companies on the market: traditional film and television companies, which are companies that have experience in making long dramas and have investment strength, and mainly make horizontal screen short dramas for Youku, iQiyi, and Mango TV; MCN companies, which are companies that have the advantage of a fan base of experts, and make short dramas for Kuaishou and Douyin; mini-program customization teams, which are also the short drama projects that most companies and teams are currently working on, and the demand for the number of mini-program short dramas is also the largest.

At present, the customized mini-program is the model with the fastest cost recovery and the largest profit margin, and it is also the preferred cooperation platform for short drama creators. Li Fangfang, founder of Sheshi Culture, said that in recent years, the most popular short drama mini-programs are basically released through information flow advertising, which ultimately generates paid and stored value. Short drama companies often only release information flow on platforms such as Toutiao, Douyin, and Kuaishou, and then distribute it through traffic advertising to attract the audience of the mini-program.

The audience watches through advertisements, short films, and then pays to watch in mini programs. This shows that the promotion and monetization strategies of long dramas and short dramas are fundamentally different. In 2022 alone, the number of views of a single short drama on Mango TV exceeded 600 million; the number of daily active users of short dramas on Kuaishou also increased to 260 million; according to public data from Douyin, the number of daily deduplicated users of its short dramas is over 100 million, with about 1,000 new short dramas added each year. The number of views of Douyin short dramas during the 2023 Spring Festival exceeded 15 billion.

Starting from 2023, short dramas have shown a blowout development trend. At the same time, the micro short drama track has also run a new entrepreneurial outlet - mini program short dramas. These independent short drama mini programs only provide users with short drama content, and in addition to users paying for on-demand viewing, they have derived diversified monetization methods such as advertising and agency sharing. Those investors with a keen sense of smell have entered the short drama track, and veteran content players such as Fangfang and Ma Yuan have seized the opportunity and continued to invest without hesitation in 2023.

2. “One-dollar drama”: low cost and high return

Looking back three years ago, micro-short dramas were just a supplementary product to long dramas.

In the past, people only watched long dramas from Youku, iQiyi and Tencent Video, which often cost hundreds of millions of yuan. However, as the audience becomes more and more niche, the long drama market is approaching saturation, and investment risks are also increasing. For example, the moral risk of actors, policy risks, etc., will make investors more cautious, and short dramas have become a new content growth point. Short drama producer Ma Yuan told the entertainment value officer, "As far as I know, this year's mini-program short dramas have entered a stage of great explosion, which shows that the short drama platform has stronger commercial capabilities.

Douyin's daily active users in 2023 have exceeded 1 billion, and with the very popular format of short drama mini programs, the incremental space for short dramas will become larger and larger. "It will occupy a large market share in the next three years, and this is also the reason why entrepreneurs and investors with "sensitive sense of smell" are pouring in. Ma Yuan revealed that the short dramas on the mini program basically have more than 100 episodes, each episode is within 1-2 minutes long, and the first 10-15 episodes are free, which is also the most exciting and eye-catching part. Subsequent episodes will be charged, with an episode fee of 0.8-1 yuan, commonly known as "one yuan drama" in the industry.

Even with a recharge discount, you still have to pay 50-80 yuan to watch a short play. These short plays, which are not cheap, have very low costs. The current market short play industry chain is not very perfect, because big directors and big actors will not participate in the creation of short plays, especially small program short plays, which are too down-to-earth, so the producers can only find new actors and directors. Most of the screenwriters are joke writers from MCN companies, and even online writers can write with simple training. A one-minute short play script is between 400 and 650 words, and a play has 100 to 200 episodes. The script of tens of thousands of words or even hundreds of thousands of words costs between 5,000 and 10,000 yuan. And these screenwriters who have been working on Douyin or Kuaishou for many years have the advantage of "bringing their own sense of the Internet."

These online sensations are what the lower-tier audiences are looking for, and they are also difficult for regular film and television screenwriters to imitate. In Ma Yuan's view, the advantage of short dramas is that they are recommended using algorithms. For example, if a drama about abusive love is made, the platform will push it to users who like abusive love; if a drama about men is made, the platform will push it to male users in the lower-tier market; if a drama about sweet pets is made, the platform will push it to younger female users.

The creative characteristics of short dramas are very distinct, that is, they are created with the market in mind. The creative team first considers the audience's feelings. The creators will position the lineup and style of the entire project based on user preferences. This creative model is more likely to gain recognition from vertical audiences and is also more likely to reap commercial returns.

There is another unspoken rule that makes mini-program short dramas profitable, which is traffic monetization. Some mini-programs are purely traffic businesses through hidden "operators" behind the scenes. For example, some short drama companies cut long dramas into slices, invest in the platform, and users click on the ads to jump to the short drama mini-program. The first 5 to 10 episodes are free to watch, and the rest of the content needs to be paid.

Therefore, the key to leveraging high returns for mini-program short dramas is the "pitchers", who are responsible for placing advertising budgets and purchasing as accurate traffic as possible to facilitate subsequent transactions. However, those stories about making a profit of one million or tens of millions with a production cost of 100,000 yuan are still "legends in the world". Ma Yuan told the entertainment value officer that many entrepreneurs who blindly rushed into this track also lost all their money.

3. Opportunities behind the largest-scale governance in history

This year, major platforms have begun to crack down on illegal short drama mini-programs. In Fangfang's view, such large-scale governance has actually played a positive role in re-regulating the industry and provided more opportunities for teams that are serious about content creation.

On April 15, according to the WeChat public account "WeChat Coral Security", based on the platform's self-inspection and user complaints, WeChat continued to strengthen its special governance efforts, and took measures to deal with short drama mini-programs that contain pornographic, vulgar, bloody, violent, and bad values ​​in accordance with relevant national laws and regulations and the "Tencent WeChat Software License Service Agreement" and "WeChat Mini-Program Operation Specifications". A total of 1,956 non-compliant mini-programs have been dealt with.

On April 16, Douyin released the "Douyin Short Drama Mini Program Compliance Special Governance Announcement", stating that after screening all short drama mini programs, more than 300 illegal short drama mini programs were removed from the shelves. For mini programs involving illegal content, the platform has dealt with the relevant mini programs according to the degree of violation, including but not limited to removing short dramas from the shelves, traffic control, restricting withdrawals, restricting settlements and even taking mini programs offline.

Short drama mini-programs mainly deliver sliced ​​content on platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, attracting users to watch and click, and then jump to the mini-program platform to continue watching. They also transition from free dramas to paid dramas, attracting users through drama payment and membership payment, and achieving accurate traffic diversion and monetization.

In this type of skit, there is no lack of illegal content that attracts attention with bizarre and vulgar plots. The content is false, exaggerated, and fabricated, and deviates from reality and is completely out of touch with reality, such as: getting rich overnight, natural talents, incest, and cross-generational illicit love, such as: grandfather-grandson love, teacher-student love; content that violates the country's religious policies, promotes cult doctrines, and develops cult members.

This year, the audience's aesthetic taste has forced the short drama industry to advance. The sophistication of micro short dramas on iQiyi, Youku, Tencent Video and Mango TV is close to that of long dramas, and short dramas on Douyin and Kuaishou have also begun to upgrade. Mini-program short dramas are seriously involuted. "It used to cost 200,000 yuan to shoot a film, but now it has developed to 400,000 or even 600,000 yuan. People's requirements for the production level of short dramas are getting higher and higher. So I believe that the quality of short dramas will improve rapidly in the next two years, and the market will also become larger. When the overall level of the industry improves, people's prejudice against short dramas will begin to be broken." One of Ma Yuan's films this year was produced by a movie-level behind-the-scenes team, and the cost is not inferior to that of a long drama.

In the summer of standardization and high-quality development, many middle-aged and elderly users with consumption power have begun to watch short dramas. These users who are converted from recommendations on Toutiao and social platforms have stronger viewing stickiness and more successful commercial conversion. If the middle-aged and elderly market is further explored, the short drama track will inevitably increase in size within this year.

Ma Yuan believes that with the standardization of industry management and the continuous improvement of shooting quality, today's short drama industry will follow the same path that online dramas had to take before. And mini programs, which are more suitable for the ecological carrier of short dramas, will also be reshuffled after wild growth, and the leading players will build an industrial chain belonging to the short drama market.

Author: Liu Nana; Editor: Mei Qi

Source: WeChat official account: "Entertainment Value Officer"